


First Christmas

by sheliesshattered (glasscannon)



Series: For As Long As We Get [6]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - actually married, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Episode AU: 2014 Xmas Last Christmas, Episode Remix, Episode: 2014 Xmas Last Christmas, F/M, Married Couple, POV Twelfth Doctor, Science Fiction, updates every other day until Christmas Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28211790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasscannon/pseuds/sheliesshattered
Summary: “Clara, when I said you could pick anywhere you wanted to go for Christmas Eve, I really had hoped you would choose something a little more scenic,” the Doctor groused as he put the TARDIS into park.“Oh shush, the north pole will be plenty scenic,” his wife replied, glancing up from shoving her feet into snowboots. She hadn’t changed out of her festive nightgown, just thrown a warm coat overtop, which had created an unusual combination, even by his standards.“You do realise there isn’t actually a pole at the north pole? Or any proper land for that matter? There’s nothing there, just ice and snow! It isn’t even magnetic north! Why don’t we go to the south pole? At least then we might see penguins.”“The south pole may indeed have penguins,” she allowed, finally wiggling into her second boot, “but it doesn’t have Santa,” she said, grinning at him.Last ChristmasAU, part of the ongoing s8 married!AU seriesFor As Long As We Get, but can be read as a stand-alone. Three chapters, complete.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: For As Long As We Get [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642132
Comments: 43
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello darlings, merry Christmas! I have one-shots in the works corresponding to both _In The Forest Of The Night_ and _Dark Water/Death In Heaven_ , but I wanted to get the part that goes with _Last Christmas_ posted in time for the holiday. ❤️

“Clara, when I said you could pick anywhere you wanted to go for Christmas Eve, I really had hoped you would choose something a little more _scenic_ ,” the Doctor groused as he put the TARDIS into park.

“Oh shush, the north pole will be plenty scenic,” his wife replied, glancing up from shoving her feet into snowboots. She hadn’t changed out of her festive nightgown, just thrown a warm coat overtop, which had created an unusual combination, even by his standards. 

“You do realise there isn’t actually a _pole_ at the north pole? Or any proper land for that matter? There’s nothing there, just ice and snow! It isn’t even magnetic north! Why don’t we go to the south pole? At least then we might see penguins.”

“The south pole may indeed have penguins,” she allowed, finally wiggling into her second boot, “but it doesn’t have _Santa_ ,” she said, grinning at him.

“The north pole doesn’t have Santa, either,” he pointed out. “Given that Santa Claus is, in fact, entirely imaginary.” 

“That’s what you said about Robin Hood,” Clara laughed. “And look how that turned out!”

“For the record, I’m still not convinced about Robin Hood, either.”

“Don’t be such a grinch, Doctor,” she chided him fondly as she started for the TARDIS doors. “It’s Christmas Eve, and I want to see the north pole. We only have to stay a few minutes.”

“Honestly, Clara,” he said, trailing after her, “it’s not like we’re going to stumble across Santa’s Workshop out there.”

“Oh, really?” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Then what do you call _this_?” She threw open both of the TARDIS doors with a flourish, her voice full of such joyful conviction that for half a moment, the Doctor actually thought they might see a life-sized toymakers’ workshop made of candy canes and gingerbread.

Instead, the sight that greeted them was far from scenic, much as he’d predicted. Heavy snowflakes filled the air, half obscuring a drab grey building set immediately opposite the TARDIS, roughly twenty metres away.

“Huh,” Clara said, letting her hands drop from the doors. “I thought you said there wasn’t anything at the north pole?”

He glared at the inexplicable building. “There shouldn’t be,” he replied. “Not in this time period.”

“It looks like some sort of research base,” she said, taking a few steps outside to get a better look, the snow crunching beneath her boots.

“As I said, possibly the least scenic and least romantic spot you could have chosen,” he stated flatly, reluctantly following her out of the TARDIS and closing the doors behind him.

She turned to look at him, walking backwards and grinning mischievously. “Or maybe Santa has just cleverly disguised his shop as a research facility, to keep nosy parkers like _us_ out.”

“If we go in there and find nothing but a load of boring scientists, will you at _least_ let me choose our next destination?” the Doctor sighed.

“Deal,” Clara said, turning to scamper off towards the heavy looking door that led into the research base.

“And if you fall on your face in the snow, we’re going back to Christmas Eve Plan A: hot cocoa by the fireplace in the library!” he called after her.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You, sir, have forgotten one _very_ important part of Christmas Eve Plan A, and don’t think I didn’t notice!”

“Which is what?” he asked, catching up to her just as she stopped outside the door.

“We agreed to hot cocoa _with_ mini marshmallows,” Clara said, prodding the centre of his chest with one finger. “It’s not really Christmas without marshmallows!”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Yes, fine. Hot cocoa _with_ mini marshmallows, beside the fire in the library. Just as soon as you accept the reality that this is not actually Santa’s Workshop.”

“Then why is there mistletoe?” she asked, one eyebrow raised as she directed his attention to the green sprig of vegetation above them.

“Right, because only Santa’s mythical workshop would hang mistletoe in a doorway at Christmas,” he said dryly.

“Oh, just shut up and kiss me,” she said, laughing. She gripped his lapels in each hand and pulled him down to her as she rose up on her toes, meeting him halfway for a quick peck. “Now then,” she said, holding his gaze from only a few inches away, “do you think you can sonic this door open? Because it is really quite cold out here, and I’m dying to know if I’m right about Santa.”

“I can guarantee you’re not right about Santa,” he told her, as she sank back to her normal height and rubbed her arms briskly.

“ _Doctor_ ,” Clara said, her laughter still evident through her whinging tone, “just open the door already!”

“Yes, boss,” he said, pulling the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointing it at the handwheel on the bulkhead door, setting it to spinning. The heavy door creaked as it swung outward slightly, and he shouldered it the rest of the way open, leading the way through. Whatever this misplaced building was, he didn’t trust the look of it one bit.

A frightened yelp from immediately in front of him drew his attention, revealing a young woman crouched on the tile floor of what appeared to be an infirmary. There were four hospital beds lining the wall to his right, their occupants draped head to toe in white sheets.

“We’ve got ghosts!” the woman cried, panic clear in her voice. “Yeah, yeah, it’s a skeleton man and a girl in a nighty,” she went on, as the Doctor spotted the communication device in her ear.

He glanced at Clara, and by unspoken agreement he went left while she went right, splitting up to investigate the room faster. His side of the room contained another empty bed and various other standard issue twenty-first century medical equipment — boring, and decidedly un-Christmassy.

“Doctor,” Clara called, and he glanced over to see her leaning in to examine one of the covered bodies. “What are they?”

“No, no, no! You’re making me think about them!” the woman on the floor said, her eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t make me think about them!”

Moving quickly to join Clara on the other side of the room, he pulled the sonic from his coat pocket again and scanned the figures. “I think we can safely assume they’re not Santa’s elves,” he told her.

In unison, all four bodies slowly sat up, the sheets covering them falling away to reveal human figures with slimy grey alien heads, eerie in their wrongness. Clara darted back a step instinctively, and the Doctor had to suppress the urge to put himself between his wife and the potential threat, knowing she would hardly appreciate his overprotectiveness.

“Just, don’t ask,” the woman told them. “And don’t look. Don’t make me think about them!”

He scanned them again. “Deaf. Blind,” he said, based on the sonic’s readings. “How can they see us? How do they even know that we’re here?”

“They can only see you, yeah, if you see them,” the woman explained. “So just, don’t look, don't even think about them.”

“Oh, telepathic,” the Doctor realised. “They can home in on their own image in someone else's brain. Third-party perception. Mind piracy.” He turned to Clara. “We're being hacked!”

“Meaning what, exactly?” 

“The visual input from your optic nerve is being streamed to their brains. Stop broadcasting. Close your eyes,” he told her, waiting until she’d done as he asked to close his eyes as well.

He listened intently, focusing on the sound of slow shuffling footsteps approaching.

“...They’re still coming, aren’t they?” Clara said, a hint of panic working its way into her tone.

“It's because we’re still thinking about them. So long as you retain them as an active memory, they can still home in. Think about something else.”

“ _How?_ ”

“So here it is, merry Christmas,” the woman on the floor began to sing, slightly out of tune.

“Why is she singing?” Clara asked.

“She’s running interference,” he replied. “She’s trying to distract herself. Three hundred and four minus seventeen.”

“Sorry, _what_?”

“Plus twenty. Just do it!”

“Why are you quizzing me on maths at a time like this??” Clara demanded.

“You have to think about something else, anything else!”

“Does it have to be _maths_?” 

“First Jane Austen quote that comes to mind!” he said, changing tacks. “Quickly, Clara, our lives may depend on it!”

“Um,” she stuttered anxiously. “‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man—’ What are they doing, Doctor? I can still hear them coming!”

“Because you’re still thinking about them. Don’t think about them, think about that quote!”

He knew he had to clear his mind as well, find something else to fixate on besides the threat slowly approaching. Grabbing hold of the first available thought, he tried to flood his mind with something completely disconnected from this moment. Christmas Eve Plan A, cocoa in the library, and Clara curled up next to him— 

“‘—that a single man—’” she started again, her voice shaking with fear.

That was no good, not nearly vivid enough to distract him. Christmas Eve Plan B, then, in their bedroom on the TARDIS— 

“‘—in possession of a good fortune—’”

It wouldn’t work to simply think of something else, he realised, not so long as the fear of the creatures remained. They had to do something more, something to clear their minds completely.

“‘—must be in want of a—’” 

In one swift movement, the Doctor leaned down, cupped Clara’s face in both hands, and kissed her soundly. 

He expected to feel her surprise seep through his fingertips, and he searched for the connection between their minds, but there was nothing, just a jumbled silence that unnerved him even more than the alien threat.

“Right, the time for snogging is over, now’s the time to run!” the stranger called to them, and he broke away from Clara, grabbing her hand and pulling her along behind him as they sprinted towards the far door on the heels of the other woman. The door swished open before they reached it, revealing three more people, each carrying a large gun.

“Go, run, now, now!” one of them called, waving them forward.

“Here they come!” yelled another, his gun pointed towards the ceiling, and the Doctor looked up to see grey carcinoform aliens descending from the rafters, heading straight for them.

The gut wrenching sound of Clara’s scream was cut off by an explosion from behind them, and he whirled around to see the door leading to the outside completely gone, replaced by a gaping hole in the wall. As he watched, a single tangerine rolled through the smoking rubble, followed by a surreal parade of slinkies and toy robots.

“Whoa, whoa boy!” called a voice, and the Doctor blinked hard at the apparition in the snow just beyond the ruined infirmary wall. A stout man wearing a red suit trimmed in white fur was dismounting from a reindeer decked out in jingle bells, like an illustration from a children’s book come to life. Glancing at Clara, he found her staring at the inexplicable man as well, disbelief beginning to shift to joy in the curl of her mouth.

“Well, now. What seems to be the problem?” the man said as he approached through the remnants of the explosion. “This is the north pole. We don’t want any trouble here. Oi, sleepy heads!” he went on, turning to the alien-headed creatures. “It’s Christmas Eve, early to bed.” He clapped his hands and the sleepers obediently turned and shuffled back towards their hospital beds.

“Who the hell are you?” one of the gun-toting women behind the Doctor demanded of the newcomer.

“Take a guess,” the Doctor said acerbically, turning to her. “Go on, push the boat out. Tooth Fairy, maybe? Easter Bunny?”

“No, this is ridiculous,” said the gobby one they’d encountered first. Her puffy gilet helpfully labelled her ‘Shona’. “Am I— am I dreaming??”

Her question jarred a memory loose, and the Doctor realised where he’d seen creatures like this before. “Oh, very good,” he muttered, his mind racing through the implications.

“I need to know exactly who you are, and what’s happening here,” the other woman said as the red-suited man approached her.

“Hello, Ashley,” the apparition of Santa Claus said, nudging the muzzle of her gun out of the way. “Lead scientist on a polar expedition! Oh, that microscope really paid off, didn't it? Now, your mum and dad wanted me to get you a toy one, but sometimes, I take a chance.”

“Who are you?” Ashley demanded. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“Why do you think?” he asked, spreading his arms wide like the answer ought to be self-evident.

“This is mental,” Shona said. “This is totally not happening!”

“I’ve got three words, Shona,” Santa said to her. “Don’t make me use ‘em.”

“What three words?”

“My. Little. Pony,” he said, ticking the words off on his fingers.

“Shut up, you!” Shona shot back.

“Doctor,” Clara said, looking up at him, “what’s going on? He can’t really be—?”

“Of course I am!” the festive dream construct replied before the Doctor could. “Come on now, Clara. You of all people ought to believe in impossible heroes! You said so yourself!”

She gave him a bemused smile. “I didn’t actually think...”

“There’s no time for all that now,” Santa said, waving it away. “We’re in the middle of an invasion!” He whistled, and his reindeer plodded in through the ruined wall, stopping beside him. Reaching into the saddlebags, he produced a large transparent container. Inside, the Doctor recognised the same sort of carcinoform alien that had descended from the ceiling before the explosion — the same sort that were wrapped around the heads of the sleepers in their hospital beds.

“What do you think, Doctor?” he went on, handing him the specimen container. “You seen them before?”

“Once, a long time ago,” the Doctor replied, taking the container and holding it up to get a better look. The creature inside looked dead or dormant, not so much as twitching with the movement.

“The Kantrofarri,” Santa said, echoing the exact word that had been rattling around the Doctor’s mind the last few minutes.

“Colloquially known as the dream crabs,” he explained to Clara.

“Depending on how many of those are already on Earth,” Santa said, “the human race may well have seen its last day. So, are we going to stand around arguing about whether or not I’m real, or are we going to get busy saving Christmas?”

Ashley cast a quick glance at the others. “Whatever the hell this is, we can’t stay here to figure it out — we’ll die of exposure, with that wall gone. Come on, we have a laboratory, down this way,” she said, turning to lead them out of the infirmary.

“What I’d tell you?” the Doctor said quietly to Clara as he fell into step beside her. “Load of boring scientists.”

“Oh, you are _loving_ this, aren’t you?” she smirked up at him. “Middle of an invasion and all you can focus on is how you were right.”

He shrugged easily. “Have to enjoy the little things, now don’t we?”

They followed Ashley into the laboratory, where she and the others divested themselves of their large guns. “Question him,” she said to Shona, with a tilt of her head towards Father Christmas. “Now then,” she went on, turning to the Doctor. “Who are you, and what is _that_?”

“I’m the Doctor, this is Clara,” he replied, dispensing with the pleasantries as quickly as possible. “And _this_ is what attacked your sleeping friends back in the infirmary,” he added, depositing the specimen container on a nearby table.

“Is it dead?” Clara asked, glancing up at him.

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

“I’m assuming it’s extra-terrestrial,” Ashley said, leaning down to examine the dream crab.

“Oh, definitely,” the Doctor said.

“Then how can you have seen them before?” she asked, straightening back up.

“Guess.”

She pressed her mouth into an unhappy line. “Because you’re extra-terrestrial, too.”

“Do you believe that?” he asked her.

“As a scientist, I have to examine all the evidence, consider all the possibilities. I’m not ruling anything out.”

“Smart,” he said appreciatively.

“If you have seen these before,” Ashley went on, “I need you to tell me everything you know about them.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why’s it called a dream crab, for a start?”

“Theorise.”

“Because it generates a telepathic field,” she said, naming their most obvious feature.

“And?”

“Alters perception.”

“Meaning?”

Ashley levelled an exasperated look at him. “I seem to be doing all the work here.”

“Meaning we can’t trust anything we see or hear,” Clara supplied, and the Doctor suppressed the proud smile that tried to curve his mouth.

“Go to the window,” he told Ashley.

“Why?” 

“Because it gets worse.”

With a skeptical look, Ashley crossed the room to the window, looking out at where the TARDIS stood faintly glowing in the falling snow. “What _is_ that?” she asked.

“That’s how Clara and I got here.”

“In a box?” she said, disbelieving.

“Technically, in a telephone kiosk,” the Doctor said with a grin.

She let out a surprised laugh. “How?”

“Because it’s a spaceship in disguise,” he told her. “You know what the big problem is in telling fantasy and reality apart?”

“What?” 

“They’re both ridiculous.”

Ashley cast a glance towards where Shona was questioning Santa Claus in the far corner. “You don’t have to tell _me_ that.”

“So we don’t know what’s real and what isn’t,” Clara said, eyeing Santa as well.

“Exactly,” the Doctor said.

“Are we in danger?” she asked seriously, turning back to him.

“Oh, we are well past danger, Clara. If I’m right, and I usually am—” he ignored Clara’s exasperated little huff, “—then we are _dying_.”

“Then how do we stay alive?” Ashley asked.

“Oh, I like you,” he said, pointing at her, “straight to the point. I want you to show me how you first encountered those creatures, and what happened to those people in the infirmary. I notice you all wear mini-cams, so I assume that there’s footage?”

“Is it possible I’m about to work with someone who might be a dream?”

“If it helps, so am I,” he smiled at her.

“We have footage on the drives, down in the control room,” she replied, tilting her head towards the hallway that led further into the base. “I’ll see what we can pull up.”

“Ashley,” he called after her as she turned to go, “what’s this polar base for? Why are you all here?”

“It’s a long story,” she said, then continued down the hallway, the other two boring scientists trailing after her.

Clara watched them go, then looked at him. “Do we need to have a rule about snogging during life and death situations?” she asked, eyeing him.

He shrugged. “I’m in favour of it.”

“The rule?”

“The snogging,” he said, grinning. “It worked, didn’t it? I had to flood your mind with random emotion.”

“ _Random_ emotion?” she demanded, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe not _random_ ,” he allowed, “but better than fear, anyway.”

She studied him for a moment, that skeptical eyebrow still raised. “Stood way over here, no telepathy or anything, and I can tell _exactly_ what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about Christmas Eve Plan B, and don’t even try to deny it.”

“I seem to remember that you weren’t exactly opposed to Plan B.”

She made an equivocal noise, tilting her head to one side. “Not opposed to it, no. But there was a _distressing_ lack of marshmallows in Plan B.”

“And yet a delightful lack of clothing,” he grinned at her.

She pressed her lips together, clearly trying to suppress a smile. “There’s no reason we can’t do both,” she said levelly, “once we’re done with whatever this is, Plan C I suppose. We live in a _time machine_ , it can be Christmas Eve as long as we want.”

“You live in a time machine?” Shona asked in disbelief as she approached, notebook and pen in hand. Behind her, Santa Claus was on his mobile phone, grousing at whatever imagined entity was supposedly on the other end.

“Indeed we do,” Clara said, turning to Shona. “That blue box, right out there,” she went on, gesturing to the TARDIS visible through the window.

“That’s a telephone box,” Shona said skeptically. “One of those old ones, yeah? For phoning the police.”

“A clever disguise,” the Doctor shrugged.

“You’re as bad as Beardy-Weirdy over there,” she said, nodding at Santa. “Don’t make a bit of sense, neither of you.”

“You don’t seem like much of a scientist,” he told her.

“That’s a bit rude,” she shot back, “coming from a magician.”

He caught Clara’s muffled snort of laughter but said to Shona, “Why are you out here? What brought you to the North Pole?”

She shrugged. “Long story, isn’t it?”

Glancing at the notes she’d taken while interrogating Santa, the Doctor said. “You missed a killer question.”

“What?”

“Beardy-Weirdy,” he called.

“Yeah?” Santa replied, angling his mobile away from his face.

“How do you get all the presents in the sleigh?”

He smirked at him. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

Clara coughed to cover her giggle, and the Doctor shot her a sour look.

Ashley came down the hall from the control room. “Doctor,” she called to him, “Bellows has found that footage you wanted to see, come on.”

The Doctor and Clara followed her to the control room, with Shona and Santa Claus trailing behind them. When they entered, they found the third woman, Bellows, stood at a control panel in front of a bank of video monitors. The polar team’s fourth member, Professor Albert, lingered nearby eating a turkey leg.

“Sorry,” he said when he noticed the Doctor’s attention, “starving.”

Ignoring him, he turned away and focused on the monitors displaying footage from four separate cameras recording one event from multiple vantage points. “What am I looking at?” he asked.

“Footage from a week ago,” Bellows replied. “A side expedition from our main mission.”

“What is your main mission?” 

“Long story,” she said dismissively, waving it away. “This is in an ice cave directly beneath this base. Now, look at what we found.” The footage focused on a cluster of Kantrofarri hanging from the ceiling of the ice cave, unmoving. “Dormant at first,” Bellows went on.

“Until you looked at them too long,” the Doctor said. “‘Til you thought about them.”

“Exactly.”

He stepped closer to the monitors, trying to get a better look. “Sleeping. Probably been down there for centuries.”

“And it wakes up when you think about it?” Clara asked.

“They can detect their own mental picture in any nearby mind,” he reminded her.

“That’s Bellows’ theory,” Ashley agreed, nodding.

“It’s like it responds to the presence of any data concerning itself,” Bellows said.

“That was always the legend,” the Doctor replied, gaze still fixed on the footage from the ice cave as the initial encounter played out. “You think about a dream crab, a dream crab is coming for you.”

“This is where it gets _really_ nasty,” Albert said around a bite of turkey.

“Only now?” Clara said dryly.

The footage turned to panicked disarray as the cluster of dream crabs descended onto the scientists, the cameras each cutting to static in quick succession. 

“Okay, then what?” the Doctor asked, glancing at Bellows.

With a few keystrokes, she pulled up another set of footage, security cameras showing multiple angles on the base’s infirmary, before the explosion, and the Doctor watched as Bellows, Ashley, and the others guided the incapacitated scientists to the hospital beds.

“They’re a bit like facehuggers, aren’t they?” Albert said, still gnawing on his never-ending drumstick.

“Face huggers?” the Doctor asked, turning to him.

“You know, ‘Alien’. The horror movie ‘Alien’,” he replied.

“There’s a horror movie called ‘Alien’?” the Doctor demanded of the room as a whole. “That’s really offensive, no wonder everyone keeps invading you!”

Beside him, Clara snorted and subtly elbowed him in the ribs.

“At first, they just slept,” Bellows said, redirecting his attention to the footage on the monitors. “Couple of days, just lying there.”

“And then they got aggressive?” the Doctor asked.

“If we got close enough, yeah,” Ashley said.

“It would take the dream crab a little while to establish control. Depends how much of the host brain was...” he trailed off, making a face.

“Was what?” Ashley asked, sounding like she didn’t actually want to know.

“...Digested,” the Doctor finished delicately. How long until the rest of them began to suspect what had happened right before the explosion in the infirmary? Hopefully not just yet. It had taken him some time to put together the pieces, after all. He needed them focused on solving the problem, he couldn’t let them descend into panic.

Ashley looked a bit nauseous. “Are they still alive under there?”

“Depends what you’d call ‘alive’,” he replied grimly.

“Are they suffering?” she clarified.

“No. No, no, no. The dream crab induces a dream state. Keeps you happy and relaxed, in a perfectly realised dream world, as you dissolve. Merciful, I suppose.”

“Compared to what?” Albert demanded.

“Compared to that turkey leg you keep eating! Could you rewind for me?” he asked Bellows. “I’d like to see them dormant again. Clara, could you fetch me the dead one?”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll fetch myself a mug of cocoa while I’m at it.”

“My very next suggestion.”

She smirked up at him. “Fair enough.” She squeezed his hand briefly, then turned and headed back to the laboratory.

“That one we have in the lab,” Ashley said, nodding towards the hall Clara had disappeared down, “how sure are you that it’s dead?”

“Not as sure as I’d like to be,” he replied, his eyes still on the monitors. “It looks too much like the cluster your team found in the ice cave.”

“I had the same thought,” she agreed. “We need to handle it with care, then, assume it’s alive until we have absolute proof otherwise. I’ve got the infirmary on lockdown, but the last thing we need is that one waking up and attacking someone in this wing of the base.”

On the screens, the dormant Kantrofarri surged into sudden action, overwhelming the scientists, and the Doctor stiffened, a terrible realisation hitting him.

“What’s wrong?” Ashley asked.

“We’re thinking about it!” he bit out, too frantic to explain himself further. “Clara!”

He spun away from the monitors and dashed down the hallway to the laboratory, the polar team close on his heels, Santa Claus following behind. 

“Clara!” he called again, skidding to a stop in the lab. His gaze landed first on the broken specimen container on the floor, and then on Clara’s snowboots peeking out from under the table. With a terrible lurch in his stomach, he dropped to his knees beside her, grabbing for her hand. It was limp in his own, and a quick glance at her face confirmed his fears: the dream crab was wrapped around her head, just like the sleepers in the infirmary.

“Clara,” he said, squeezing her hand, “you’re dreaming— you’re _dying_. Can you hear me? Clara!”

“We did try to wake the others,” Ashley said. “No stimulus worked.”

“Okay, we kill it,” the Doctor said in a rush, pushing back to his feet. “We find a way to kill it and we get it off of her. How do we kill it?”

“There’s no way to kill it without killing your friend, too,” she replied. “And as a scientist, may I just say, I don’t like the way you’re talking.”

“She’s not just my friend, she’s my _wife_ , so perhaps you can understand why I find that answer unacceptable!” He turned away from her, uninterested in any further input she might have. “Santa, in the infirmary, you told the sleepers to go to bed and they obeyed you.”

“Sorry,” he shrugged, “doesn’t mean I can get that creature off her.”

“No, but you can get back in there unharmed.”

“What? You’re asking Santa for help?” Shona demanded. “He doesn’t exist!”

“And how would you know that?” the Doctor snarled back at her. “How did you become an expert on what does and doesn’t exist?

“Says the man who travels in a time machine disguised as a police box, married to a woman half his age!”

“Shut up!” he said, pointing at her. “Clara has a rule against explaining our marriage to small-minded people for _exactly_ this reason. Kris Kringle, you’re up.”

“I can commit several million housebreaks in one night dressed in a red suit with jingle bells,” Santa said mildly, “of course I can get back into the infirmary.”

“Good. Because there is only one way that I can communicate with Clara, only one way to wake her up. I need you to get one of the dream crabs and bring it back here.”

Santa raised his eyebrows. “You realise what you’re asking?”

“Consider it the extent of my Christmas wishlist. Now _go_!”

“This is proper mental,” Shona said once Santa had gone. “You’re gonna, what? Put a dream crab on your face and hope for the best?”

“The dream crabs create a _shared_ dream state,” he explained, more to keep his mind occupied than out of any real desire to help her understand. “If I can get in there, I can pull Clara out.”

“Then how come none of the rest of them have been able to wake themselves up?”

“Clara has one advantage they don’t have,” he said, turning to kneel beside her again. “Me!”

It seemed to take an unreasonably long time for Santa to return, but when he finally did, it was with another specimen container in hand. Unlike the last, this Kantrofarri skittered inside its enclosure, tapping at the glass, searching for a victim.

“Go away,” the Doctor told the polar team before they could try to talk him out of his plan. “Go back to the control room and think about something else. I’m not going to risk all of your lives as well.”

“Doctor—” Ashley started anyway.

“Go!” he said, pointing to the exit and leaving no room for argument, and one by one the scientists turned and shuffled out of the room.

“Bring it over here,” he said to Santa as he sat down beside Clara’s still form. “I think I’ve got a better chance at this if I’m in physical contact with Clara.”

“You sure about all this, Doctor?” Santa asked, crouching beside him.

He cast a quick glance down the hallway to make sure none of the others were listening, then said quietly, “I’m sure I’m already dreaming, and have been since the explosion in the infirmary. Which means that _you_ are just a manifestation of my subconscious, or possibly the collective subconsciousnesses of everyone in the polar base.”

“You’re the science-y one, I’m just the jingle bells one,” Santa shrugged, “but that sounds logical to me.”

“Which means you even asking that question is really me asking myself — or an echo of the combined worry of the pudding brains in there,” he said, tilting his head towards the other room.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not worth asking. Are you sure about this, Doctor?” Santa said again. “What if it kills you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the Doctor replied, shaking his head. “If I can’t get Clara back, none of this matters.”

“You love her that much?”

“Rhetorical question,” he said, arranging himself on the floor beside her and lacing his fingers through hers. “Yes, I love her that much. I’d go to hell if it meant even a _chance_ of getting her back.”

“You may yet, Doctor,” Santa said ruefully, hefting the Kantrofarri. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, Santa.”

“Don’t say I never brought you anything for Christmas,” he sighed as he lowered the dream crab towards the Doctor, and then the world went black.


	2. Chapter 2

When the Doctor opened his eyes, the polar base was gone, and he found himself in the TARDIS console room instead. The rotors were humming quietly overhead, and he could hear the Vortex zipping by just outside the doors, but when he laid his hand on the telepathic circuits and reached out to the TARDIS’s consciousness, there was nothing but a strange blankness.

“This is a dream,” he reminded himself out loud. “And it’s killing me.” He looked around the room, but even in the dim lighting he could tell that it was empty aside from him. “Clara,” he said, turning towards the stairs and taking them two at a time. “ _Clara!_ ” he called louder, but heard no response.

Knowing this was a dream meant he could cheat some of the physics, rearrange the TARDIS architecture in ways she’d never cooperate with in the waking world. He turned one corner, and the hallway he found there stretched out long and straight ahead of him, filled with mismatched doors that were each intensely familiar — every place he thought Clara might be hiding, arranged with the most likely closest to him.

The first door to his right was the one that led to their bedroom. “Christmas Eve Plan B,” he murmured as he paused outside it. Unsure of what he might find inside, he took a deep breath to brace himself, then opened the door and stepped through. 

The room looked much as it did in reality, homey and sprawling and cluttered with the evidence of their life together — and unoccupied so far as he could tell. The bed was as unmade as they usually left it, but the sheets were cold. 

He ducked into the attached ensuite, knowing how fond Clara was of the oversized bathtub, but he found it likewise empty. He called her name, and again was met with silence.

Retreating back into the hallway, he was immediately confronted with the next possibility. Across from their bedroom, unlike in the real TARDIS, were the familiar wooden doors of the library.

“Plan A it is, then,” he said to himself, and pushed through the double doors.

Inside, the stacks were dark, but he could see the flickering light of the fireplace ahead, and followed it to its source with quick, long strides. As he rounded the last bookcase, he spotted Clara, curled up on the sofa in front of the fire with a book open in her hands. The Christmas tree they’d decorated together stood off to one side, and the garlands he’d had to wrestle into submission hung from the mantelpiece.

“Clara,” he called as he neared, relieved to have found her but anxious to get them both out of this dream and back to the polar base and the on-going attack of the Kantrofarri.

“There you are,” she said, smiling softly but not looking up from her book. “I was beginning to worry that the cocoa would have gotten cold in the time it took you to get back here from the kitchen.”

“Nonsense, my dear,” said a Scottish-accented voice from behind the Doctor, and he turned to see a short figure approaching, carrying two steaming mugs. He recognised the man’s face immediately, though it had been more than a thousand years and half a dozen regenerations since he’d last seen it in the mirror. “The TARDIS would never be so _rude_ as to allow your cocoa to go cold!” the interloper continued as he brushed past the Doctor, seeming completely unaware of him. 

He scowled at his younger self, taking in the silly question mark jumper and paisley necktie. What _this_ version of him was doing in Clara’s dream he couldn’t even begin to guess, but—

“Thank you, Doctor,” Clara said as she accepted the mug of hot cocoa from him, inclining her face up towards his to receive a quick kiss.

Oh, oh, that was just _wrong_.

“Did I ever tell you...” the younger Doctor started, as he settled into the corner of the sofa beside Clara.

“About the time you accidentally got engaged by drinking hot cocoa with a woman you’d barely met?” she finished for him, directing a look of such adoration towards his younger self that it made the Doctor’s hearts clench. “Yes, many times,” she went on, smiling and setting her book on the coffee table. “But I don’t think we have to worry about that. Married supersedes engaged, after all.”

“Quite right, quite right,” the man beside her replied in a different voice, and when the Doctor looked he found that the one wallpapered in question marks had disappeared, replaced by the white-haired man who had suffered through that accidental engagement.

Clara seemed unperturbed by the change, instead frowning down at the mug in her hands. “Did you forget something, daft old man?” she said.

“Don’t think so,” the dream Doctor said, shifting his face again, this time to the one with the ears and the northern accent. “We’ve got our fire, we’ve got our books, we’ve got our cocoa: a perfect Christmas!”

She leveled a fond but unamused look at his doppleganger that the Doctor knew all too well. “I was promised mini marshmallows,” she said seriously.

“Ah,” the younger Doctor replied with yet another face, making a show of patting at the pockets of his ridiculous rainbow-coloured coat, presumably in search of the missing sweets. “I know I’ve got them around here somewhere...”

“Take your time,” she said, blowing at the steam rising from her cocoa.

“Jelly Baby?” he offered instead, pulling a crumpled paper bag from his pocket, and the Doctor was unsurprised to see the other version of himself change again, now all grinning teeth and long knitted scarf. 

“Not in my cocoa, Doctor,” Clara said with a roll of her eyes.

“Oh, you’re no fun,” his last face huffed, bowtie and tweed replacing the scarf. “And for the record I _still_ don’t understand your aversion to fish fingers and custard.”

She wrinkled up her nose in disgust. “Ugh. Trust you to find something even less appetising than Jelly Babies and cocoa.”

“Could we, perhaps,” the dream Doctor said, now wearing a green velvet frock coat and his hair longer than he’d had it since before the Time War, “forego the marshmallows and simply enjoy our Christmas together?”

The kaleidoscope of his past faces was quickly losing whatever marginal charm it had begun with, and the Doctor hadn’t the time or the patience to stand around watching his younger selves flirt with his wife. Neither Clara nor the dream Doctor seemed at all aware of him, but maybe if he elbowed his way into the conversation he could break her out of her haze, wake her up and get both of them back to the polar base.

Knowing they were dreaming had its benefits, and he reached into the pocket of his coat and found the bag of mini marshmallows he had willed into existence. Quickly striding across the intervening distance, he sat on the other side of Clara and offered her the bag.

She gave no indication that she had noticed his presence, so he said, “It’s not really Christmas without marshmallows, now is it?” 

Time seemed to slow as she turned to him, her hair flaring before settling again on her shoulders, her eyes lighting up as her gaze fixed on his face.

“I knew you hadn’t forgotten!”

“You were promised mini marshmallows,” he said, making no move to open the bag or hand it to her, “when we were stood outside the research facility at the north pole, remember?”

Her brow creased in confusion. “What are you talking about? We’ve been here at home all day. This is Christmas Eve Plan A: hot cocoa by the fireplace in the library.”

“But first you wanted to see the north pole,” he pressed.

A noise of scoffed disgust came from Clara’s other side, drawing their attention. “There’s nothing _at_ the north pole!” the impersonation said, now wearing the Doctor’s own face, attack eyebrows lowered and expression sour.

“ _Shut up_ ,” the Doctor told himself before turning back to his wife. “This is very important, Clara,” he said, plucking the hot cocoa out of her hands and setting it aside. “How did you get here? We were in the research base, there was a load of boring scientists, just like I predicted, only they were being attacked by very not-boring dream crabs, remember?”

“Dream crabs,” snorted his doppleganger, now sporting a velvet jacket and a ludicrously ruffled shirt. “Honestly, man, could you not come up with anything more convincing than _dream crabs_?”

Clara glanced between them uncertainly. “Like the facehuggers in ‘Alien’,” she said in a small voice.

The Doctor barely contained his eyeroll, relieved that she remembered any detail, no matter how ridiculous. “Yes, like the facehuggers in ‘Alien’,” he allowed. “They induce a dream state, Clara. A dream state like _this_. A comforting, happy dream, to anesthetise you while they kill you!”

Across from him, the Doctor with the plaid trousers and dark mop of hair opened his mouth to interject, but he cut him off swiftly. “No,” he said, pointing a finger at his past self. “We do not have time for this. Whatever it is, just zip it.”

“I don’t see how there’s any call to be rude about it,” the dream Doctor said anyway, changing his face to the one who thought celery was a reasonable fashion accessory.

“What even is this?” he demanded before he could think better of it, watching as the impersonation morphed again. “The dream crabs are supposed to create an idealised world, not— whatever the hell _this_ is.”

“ _We_ are the representation of the Doctor in Clara’s subconscious,” the grizzled old soldier declared, like it was a normal sort of thing to throw into conversation.

“Would you pick a face and stick to it?” the Doctor snapped.

“Nah,” the other him replied, shifting again to the pinstripe suit one. “That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? We’re all ‘the Doctor’ and Clara knows it. Don’t you, sweetheart?”

Clara turned towards his doppelganger, smiling, her unwavering gaze fixed on him. “My Doctor,” she said, voice full of adoration.

“Clara, _Clara_ , listen to me,” the Doctor said, putting his hand on her shoulder to draw her attention back to him. “He’s not real! None of them are! It’s a dream, and it’s killing you!”

She stared at him, confusion creating a line between her brows. “Are you a dream?” she asked him, sounding like she was at least trying to sort truth from fiction. “Two Doctors, I think I’ve had this dream before...”

“This is no time for—” He cut off with a muffled sound, unable to continue as Clara launched herself at him, kissing him with the sort of intensity he would encourage under any circumstances where they weren’t _actively dying_.

He wrenched himself away from her, his hearts hammering. “We do not have time for this!”

Clara stared at him a moment, eyes narrowed, then shifted around to face the dream Doctor. “Now you,” she said, pulling bowtie in by his tweed lapels. He went more than willingly, cupping her face and drawing her into a deep and lingering kiss. The Doctor had to look away, unprepared for the wrenching twist in his gut at seeing his last face kiss Clara so passionately.

The kiss ended audibly, and then he heard his own voice say in a low rumble, “There is, of course, Christmas Eve Plan B, if you’d like to take this some place more private, my Clara?”

“Shush,” she told the imposter, and the Doctor looked up to see her turning back to him. 

“Okay, so you’re real,” she said. “This is a dream, I get that, but _you_ are real. You’re the man I married.”

“ _That’s_ your litmus test for real?” he demanded. “Deduction by _snogging_?”

Clara leveled an exasperated, clear-eyed look at him. “Do you want to argue or do you want to explain to me what’s going on?”

He glanced to the other side of the sofa to find that the dream Doctor had disappeared entirely, leaving only his steaming mug of cocoa behind on the coffee table. Good riddance. 

“The dream crabs,” he told her quickly. “The one in the laboratory wasn’t nearly as dead as we thought it was. It got loose, attacked you.”

“And sent me _here_?”

“That’s what the dream crabs _do_ , Clara!”

She glanced around the library uncertainly. “But it feels so real.”

“You have a pain, right here,” he said, touching one finger to her temple. “It’s like an ice cream pain, but gentle. Do you know what that is? The skin and bone have been parted, probably half an inch, and something has pushed right into the soft tissue of your brain and is very slowly dissolving it. I want you to picture it this way: somebody has put a straw right through your skull and is _drinking_ you. You should be screaming with agony, but there's anaesthetic. Everything around you, the TARDIS, the cocoa, even that dream version of me — _especially_ that dream version of me — that's the anaesthetic. You are dying, Clara!”

Her eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “If this is a dream, how can you be here?” she asked. “How can we both be having the same dream?”

“There was only one way I could get to you,” he said grimly.

“And what was that?”

“I’m dying, too.”

The colour drained from her face. “No,” she said, shaking her head.

“I didn’t have a choice—”

“It’s rule one!” Clara snapped, interrupting him.

“Rule one is no dying for _either_ of us!” 

“So you thought you’d be a self-sacrificing idiot instead??”

“Rule two: we don’t walk away from each other. I wasn’t going to leave you in here to die!” 

“Tell me you have a plan,” she said fiercely. “A way to save us both. What do we do?”

He gripped her hand in an echo of how he had bound them together in the laboratory. “We have to wake up. Focus on that pain, make it real. Right now, Clara. Wake up!”

There was a sensation of rushing upwards, and then they were lying beside each other on the floor of the polar base, coughing as the dead Kantrofarri fell away and crumbled to dust, Clara’s hand still clasped tightly in his. 

“Clara?” he said, sitting up and turning towards her. “Clara, look at me! You’re alright, just breathe. Breathe, breathe.”

She launched herself into his chest and clutched at his coat with her free hand, trembling against him and gasping for breath. “I would tell you never to do something so _stupid_ ever again,” she said in a low voice meant just for him, “but I know there’s no way either of us would ever agree to it.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead and nodded, inhaling her scent. _Every good day, every bad day_ , he projected at her, but if there was a response from her at all, it was faint, barely a whisper. 

“Right, where were we?” she said, pulling away from him and looking up at the people clustered around them. “North pole, scientists, Santa. Right.”

“I thought I told you all to go away,” the Doctor said scowling at them as he climbed to his feet and helped Clara to hers as well.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen anyone wake up from those things,” Ashley said. “As a scientist, you can’t expect me to miss out on data like that.”

He looked at the piles of dust and shattered carapace that remained from the dream crabs, as Clara disentangled herself from him and went to where a mirror was mounted on the far wall. “Well, now we know: _that’s_ what a dead one looks like.”

“So these creatures, when their feeding goes wrong, they die?” Bellows said.

“The carnivore’s hazard,” he shrugged. “Food has teeth too.” He turned to Clara. “You okay?”

“No,” she said shortly, meeting his gaze in the mirror with a worried look.

“Good. There are some things we should never be okay about.”

“There doesn’t seem to be a wound,” she said, brushing past his platitude.

Ah. Perhaps she was beginning to put together the clues. It was inevitable, really, there was only so long he could distract someone as clever as Clara. And he could feel the attention of the dream crabs focused on them now, aware that their victims were fighting back. Time to bring the polar team up to speed, too. “No,” he agreed with Clara, giving her a significant look. “And the pain’s still there, isn’t it?”

“Is it the ice cream pain? Just here?” Shona asked, pressing a finger to her own temple. “‘Cause I’ve got that, too.”

“It’s the cold, I think,” Bellows said uncertainly. “Some sort of reaction.”

“But only on the one side, just that spot there? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” he said, as Clara crossed the room to stand beside him again.

“Well, we’ve all got it,” Albert shrugged, unconcerned.

“Okay, so why do we all have that pain?” Ashley asked.

“Theorise,” the Doctor prompted.

“It’s worse now than it was in the dream,” Clara said, glancing up at him, the concern clear on her face. “I was dreaming, then I woke up. I know that, but—”

“Do you? And have you ever woken up from a dream and discovered that you’re still dreaming? Dreams within dreams. Dream states nested inside each other. All perfectly possible, especially when we’re dealing with creatures who have weaponised our dreams against us.”

Clara nodded thoughtfully.

“I don't know about anybody else,” Bellows said, “but I’m pretty certain I’m awake right now?”

“Bet your life on it?” Clara shot back.

“What do you mean?” Ashley asked.

“What if all this is a dream?” Clara said. “Nested dream states, that ice cream pain — it could be a shared dream, one that’s killing us. What I can’t work out is when it would have started...”

“The infirmary,” the Doctor supplied. “All those creatures coming down from the ceiling, attacking us. We never stood a chance.”

“Yeah, but we were rescued,” Shona said.

“And who was it that rescued us?” he asked. In unison, they all turned to look at Santa Claus.

Saint Nick shrugged, spreading his arms wide. “What can I say? I go where I’m needed.”

“Since the attack in the infirmary, nothing has been real?” Ashley said skeptically.

“The attack is still going on,” the Doctor told her. “This is it! And now that the dream crabs know we’re fighting back, that attack will only get more vicious.”

“Other than all of us having the same headache, what evidence do we have that this is a dream?” she demanded.

“You mean _besides_ Santa Claus?? We don’t have time for this!” the Doctor snapped. “Out there in the real world, our brains are being slowly digested, but don’t use that as an excuse to be an idiot!”

“Doctor, behave,” Clara said, shooting him a look. “There has to be a way to prove it. When we were dreaming before, there were inconsistencies, impossible things. What about that test? The, um...”

“The Helman-Ziegler test,” he said on a sigh. “Yes, alright. But quickly.”

“We need books,” Clara told the polar team as the Doctor began to search the room for exactly that. “Multiple copies of the same book.”

Dream logic: he should be able to make them appear just by picturing it. “Ah,” he said as he spotted them half-hidden on a low bookcase. “Your base manual. I take it none of you have memorised this?”

“I haven’t even read it,” Shona admitted, as the others shook their heads.

“It’s the only reliable dream test that I know,” the Doctor told them as he handed each of the scientists a manual. “These books should be identical in the real world. But as they don’t exist in your memory, in a dream, they can’t be. Agreed? Clara, give me any two digit number.”

“Fifty-seven,” she said without hesitation.

“All right, all of you, turn to page fifty-seven and look at the very first word.”

“Isotope,” Ashley read.

“Extremely,” Bellows said.

Albert flipped a few pages, then said, “Inside.”

“Chocolate,” Shona said. “Why did I get chocolate? What’s that about?”

“This can’t be right,” Albert objected. “We must have got it wrong, that’s all!”

“Yes, by all means, _that’s_ the more likely answer,” the Doctor said acerbically, rolling his eyes. 

Clara took his hand and pulled him away from the group. “Listen, I know you’re stressed,” she said quietly, leaning in close. “I know you’re trying to save us and get everyone back to the real world alive, but these people are already scared enough. We have to—” She cut herself off, staring down at their linked hands, her slim fingers wrapped around his. “Doctor, I can’t— I can’t _hear_ you,” she said, looking up at him in alarm.

“I know,” he replied in a low voice. “I can’t either. I think it’s an artifact of the dream, telepathy doesn’t work down here.”

“Alright, we’ll do it again,” Ashley was saying, clearly trying to reason with Albert. “Page number, Clara?”

“Twenty-four,” she called back. “Maybe you can break through it?” she went on, voice pitched for him alone. “Project your thoughts at me?”

“Worth a shot,” he murmured. He searched for the door that ought to exist between their minds, the one that had been there every moment since she’d accepted his marriage proposal, but it was like he was fumbling around in the dark, trying and failing to find the doorknob that had always been blatantly obvious before. There was simply nothing _there_. He tried projecting his thoughts at her anyway, pushing them towards her mind with as much force as he dared. “Anything?” he asked.

Her gaze was distant, turned inwards, concern still wrinkling her brow. “A faint buzzing, maybe, like a badly tuned radio.” 

On the other side of the room, the scientists had flipped through their manuals, and one at a time read:

“We.”

“Are.”

“All.”

Shona hesitated and then said, “Dead.”

Clara pressed her mouth into a grim line and looked up at him. “We have to get out of here. We have to wake up, and we have to do it quickly.”

“We could repeat these results all day,” Ashley said as they rejoined the scientists. “It’s time to face facts that out there in the real world, we are under attack. We never made it out of the infirmary.”

“We’ve been dreaming since then?” Albert said in disbelief.

“Oh, for Easter’s sake!” Santa replied, voice laced with exasperation that sounded like the Doctor’s own. “Of course you’ve been dreaming! Haven’t you been paying attention?”

“It is rather obvious, now that I think about it,” Bellows said quietly. 

“As you stand here, chatting, chatting, your lives are ending,” Santa went on. “Unless you wake up, unless you free yourselves from these dreadful creatures, they’re going to destroy you!”

Shona looked at him in consternation. “What is this, why are you helping us? You’re a dream who’s trying to save us?”

“Shona sweetheart, I’m Santa Claus! I think you just _defined_ me.”

“This is because I said we’d come to the north pole and find Santa, isn’t it?” Clara murmured, glancing at the Doctor.

“I wouldn’t doubt that had an influence on it,” he told her quietly. 

“You’re at the north pole, it’s Christmas Eve, and you’re dying,” Santa said. “Who you gonna call?”

“Seriously?” Shona demanded.

“Oh come on, it makes perfect sense,” the Doctor said. “The dream crab tries to make the dream as real as possible to trap you inside it. It creates dreams within dreams so you can never be sure if you are really awake. But your brain knows something is wrong. Your subconscious fights back. Santa Claus is your mind trying to tell you that this _isn’t real_.”

“So what do we do?” Bellows asked.

“We have to wake ourselves up,” Ashley said before the Doctor could reply. “How did you do it, Doctor? You went in after Clara and brought her out again. How?”

“That pain in your head,” he said. “Focus on it. Make it worse. Head towards it.”

“And when we wake up?” she asked. “What do we expect?”

“Only a few moments will have passed at the most,” he told her. “The attack is still in progress.”

“I’m scared,” Shona admitted.

“Good,” Clara said evenly as she took the Doctor’s hand again. “Scared is a superpower.”

“Stay calm,” Ashley said. “Good luck. And God bless us, every one.”

He focused on the feeling of Clara’s hand clasped in his and the pain in his temple increasing as his consciousness rushed upwards. And then he was on the cold floor of the infirmary, his hand empty, and a dream crab crumbling to dust beside his head. He pushed quickly to his feet, gaze instantly landing on the four sleepers shambling towards them.

“Run!” he shouted, as the others all scrambled up and towards the door leading to the rest of the base.

As she stood, Clara tripped on the hem of her nightgown, stumbling forward before quickly righting herself. Sensing the easiest target, the sleepers converged on her, and with his hearts hammering against his ribs, the Doctor darted back to her side just as they reached her. One of the sleepers grabbed Clara’s arm, pulling her away from him like something out of a nightmare. He yelled her name, holding tight to her and trying to break the sleeper’s hold, but the creature was too strong, too intent on claiming one final victim. 

Out of panic and instinct, he swung his fist at the dream crab, landing a punch directly to the grey carapace. The sleeper released Clara and fell back a step, dazed for a moment, and the Doctor quickly ushered Clara through the door as the remaining sleepers continued to advance on them.

Ashley was waiting by the control panel on the other side of the doorway and engaged the locking mechanism just as soon as they were past. The closest sleeper reached its hand through after them, preventing it from closing, but Bellows hit it with the butt of her oversized gun until it retreated and the door slid shut with a reassuring thud.

“Everyone alright?” the Doctor asked, surveying the polar team. Four scientists, all still alive, no obvious injuries. Surely that had to be the extent of his commitment to them — especially tonight, on his first Christmas Eve with his wife, in a place he hadn’t even wanted to come to. “Good,” he said. “Bye.”

Turning to walk briskly down the hall, he heard Clara say, “Sorry, I’ll just go and—” and then quickly follow after him. 

“Doctor,” she said, catching up to him as he turned a corner. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the TARDIS,” he said, shortening his strides to allow her to fall into step beside him. “We can’t go through the infirmary, but I saw another exit just past here, then we can follow the exterior wall around to where we left her.”

“What about the polar team?” Clara demanded.

“Oh, they’ll be fine,” he shrugged. “They’re clever, they’ll figure something out.”

“And the people in the infirmary?”

“Beyond our help,” he said as they reached the bulkhead door. He sonicked it open and led Clara out into the snowy night, keeping close to the perimeter of the polar base.

She sighed in exasperation as she followed him. “There’s still the threat that Earth is under invasion by dream crabs!” she pointed out.

“So once we get back to the TARDIS, we’ll phone Kate, let UNIT handle it. That’s literally their job.”

“We don’t walk away,” Clara said stubbornly.

“We’re not walking away, we’re just delegating!” he said, pausing and turning to her as they reached the exterior of the infirmary door, where they’d first entered the polar base — what felt like hours ago, but couldn’t have been more than ten minutes in reality. The TARDIS was visible through the falling snow barely twenty metres away, beckoning them home. “Honestly, Clara, we ought to give someone else a chance to save the planet from time to time.”

She stared up at him, her expression serious. “Why are you so set on leaving?”

“Clara...” he sighed, looking away.

“No,” she said firmly. “No more hiding, no more lying. What is going on with you?”

He chewed over his words for a moment, finally meeting her gaze again. “I nearly lost you in there,” he said in a low voice. “Twice. Which is far too many times for any day, much less the first Christmas we’ve had together since our wedding. I want to go _home_ , Clara. I want to go back to Christmas Eve Plan A, and Christmas Eve Plan B, and let the universe fend for itself for awhile.”

Clara’s expression softened as she listened. “Alright, Doctor,” she said, smiling gently at him. “Alright. We can go home now. On two conditions.”

“Oh, now there’s conditions?” he demanded in mock outrage.

“ _One_ ,” she said, speaking over his grousing, “we phone UNIT as soon as we get in, no arguments about living in a time machine and contacting them when it’s convenient. And two: we’re standing under the mistletoe again, so I am owed a kiss.”

She looked upwards, to the space over the door to the infirmary where they had spotted the mistletoe before. Following her gaze, the Doctor blinked at the empty doorframe and the distinct absence of festive greenery.

“Doctor,” Clara said, sounding worried. “Where’s the mistletoe gone?” 

He quickly glanced at the ground at their feet, and then out to their footsteps leading from the TARDIS, not even half filled in by the falling snow.

“You said it’d only been a few minutes,” she went on, “and no one’s been out here but us. So what happened to the mistletoe?”

Feeling panic creeping up on him, he reached for Clara’s hand, fumbling as he laced their fingers together. There was no spark of their minds connecting, nothing but that same unnerving silence from before. “We’re still dreaming,” he said, finding her gaze as the pain in his temple flared again.

She looked as terrified as he felt. “Which means the four of them in there—”

“ _Four_!” he said, the realisation hitting him. “Four patients, four manuals. Do you know what I hate about the obvious, Clara?”

“What?” she asked, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

“Missing it!” he said, gesturing emphatically to the infirmary door. 

He watched as Clara seemed to quickly catch on to his thought process, even without the aid of telepathy. “Four scientists and four sleepers, but only four manuals?”

“Exactly!”

Together they turned and hurriedly retraced their steps back the way they’d come, the fate of themselves and everyone in the polar base hanging in the balance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter will be posted on Christmas Eve! Thank you for reading, and leave me a comment or an emoji or a keyboard smash to let me know what you thought. ❤️


	3. Chapter 3

“As you were, don’t salute,” the Doctor said as he and Clara rushed back into the control room. 

The polar team looked up from where they were clustered around the monitors, watching a live feed of the infirmary and the four sleepers in their hospital beds.

“You’re back?” Shona said. “What’s wrong, do you need a jumpstart for your police box?”

He ignored her, grabbing for the base manuals, right where he had willed them to be. “Four manuals, yes?” he said, holding them up.

“Yes, why?” Ashley asked.

“One each,” he went on.

“One each, yes,” Albert said testily. “What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that you can’t _see_ the problem. For instance, Shona—” the Doctor tossed a manual at her, which she snatched out of the air just before it hit her in the face, “—when we first met in the infirmary, what were you doing?”

She thought a moment, then said, “Well, it’s a long story.”

“Ashley,” he said, turning to her and trying for a slightly more gentle throw, “what’s the primary mission of this polar base?”

“It’s a long story,” she said, waving it away as unimportant.

“Bellows,” he went on, passing her the third manual, “what brings you to the north pole at your age?”

“It’s a long...” she trailed off, blinking at him in shock, “...story.”

“All of you with the exact same non-specific answer,” Clara said, as he handed the last manual to Albert. “Bit freaky, don’t you think?”

“Well, what does it mean?” Ashley asked.

“Dreams — they’re funny,” the Doctor explained. “They’re disjointed, they’re full of gaps. But you don’t notice, because the dream protects itself. Stops you asking the right questions. For example, why do you have four manuals, one each, when you have a crew of eight? Or did you forget about your friends in the infirmary?” he added, gesturing at the monitors.

“But this isn’t a dream!” Albert objected. “We woke up!”

“Dreams within dreams, I warned you!”

“We’re not dreaming,” Bellows said. “I know we aren’t.”

“No one knows they’re not dreaming,” the Doctor said. “Not one of us. Not ever. Not for one single moment of our lives. Clara?” he went on, turning to her. “Page number. Make it a good one.”

She shot him a flirtatious look, so quick he doubted any of the others had noticed. “Twelve,” she said confidently.

“Very,” Ashley read.

“Very,” Albert said as well.

“Very,” Bellows agreed, confusion colouring her tone.

This had to be a dream, he was certain of it. The Helman-Ziegler test couldn’t fail now. They all turned to look at Shona.

She stared at the page in front of her for a long moment, then finally said, “Dead.”

“And who’s going to be the first to admit it?” he said before Albert or anyone else could try to rationalise that result away.

“Admit what?” Ashley said.

“The pain’s still there.”

Shona made a face, rubbing at her temple. “Actually, I think it’s gotten _worse_.”

“The dream crabs know we’re fighting them and winning,” the Doctor said. “So they’re trying to kill us faster. Of course it’s getting worse.”

“Doctor,” Clara said, calling his attention to the live footage of the infirmary on the monitors. “What are they doing?”

On screen, all four sleepers were slowly rising from their hospital beds. “Factually,” he said, “sitting up. Significantly, sensing the endgame. It’s us or them.”

“How?” Ashley said, just as Bellows said, “I don’t understand.”

“Well, look at them,” he told them. “Go on, look at them properly. See what the dream doesn’t want you to notice. They’re you. The sleepers are _you_. There never was a crew of eight, only ever the four of you.”

“How can they be us?” Shona demanded.

“Because we’re still dreaming, all of us. This base isn’t real, any more than Santa Claus was! None of us are actually standing in this room. Clara and I must be asleep in the TARDIS. Who knows where the rest of you are — you might be neighbors, or you might be scattered all over the world. But wherever you are, the dream crabs have got us, and we’re all being networked into the same nightmare.”

“What are they doing?” Bellows asked with growing panic, and the Doctor turned to the monitors to see the sleepers approaching the security cameras, staring them down with their sightless grey carapaces.

“It’s your subconscious again,” he explained quickly. He could feel the awareness of the dream crabs focused on them, bearing down — they needed to find a way to wake up, and for real this time. “The sleepers represent the part of your mind that’s already surrendered to the attack. These are dream images of what’s killing you!”

“That’s me?” Albert said. “That’s actually _me_?”

“No, it’s a metaphorical construct representing a psychic attack within a shared dreamscape. Do please keep up!”

Albert leaned closer to the monitor, examining the sleeper that bore his name on its gilet. “But it’s me!”

“Don’t get too close,” the Doctor warned, as the Albert-shaped sleeper stretched out a hand towards the camera. 

“Why not?”

“Because this is a nightmare! The rules of reality don’t apply!”

In a flash, the sleeper reached through the monitor and seized Albert, pulling him in as he screamed. Clara made a grab for him as he disappeared, and the Doctor snatched her away from the screen, all too worried that she would get dragged in behind.

On the remaining three monitors, the other sleepers were similarly reaching out, and when he glanced at the scientists, he found them raising their hands towards their nightmare counterparts in unison.

“Look out, they’re coming through!” he barked, backing away and pulling Clara along with him. “Out! Outside, now! Run, run! Clara, run! Run, all of you, _run_!”

The polar team seemed to snap to attention, just as the sleepers stepped through the monitors into the control room. Clara quickly led them out of the room, back down the hallway to the door that led outside, as the Doctor followed after, making sure no one was left behind. He knocked over chairs and bookcases into the path of the advancing sleepers, but they continued to come, not slowed by the obstacles. He sprinted down the hallway after the others, desperate to catch up to Clara.

“Doctor!” she called. “Sonic!”

He pulled it from his pocket and tossed it to her over the heads of the scientists, skidding to a halt just as Clara sonicked the bulkhead door open. She led the way outside as the Doctor caught sight of the sleepers again, plodding inexorably down the corridor after them. He followed the polar team out, then pushed the door closed behind them, leaning his weight against it until Clara had secured the lock with the sonic.

“We’ll freeze to death out here!” Bellows said.

“The cold is just part of the nightmare,” Clara reminded her. “The only thing any of us are going to die from are the dream crabs drilling into our skulls!”

“Where’s Albert?” Shona asked, looking around.

“Gone,” the Doctor said shortly, turning to lead everyone around the building in the direction of the TARDIS. “If he’s very lucky, he just woke up somewhere in the real world.”

“And if he’s not?” Ashley said.

“What part of _there is an alien creature wrapped around your head, drinking your brain tissue_ are you having trouble understanding?” he demanded, walking briskly. “Come on, we have to get to the TARDIS, it’s our only way out of here.”

“But Doctor,” Clara said, jogging to keep up, “it’s not the real TARDIS!”

“Then let’s hope we dreamed it well,” he replied, as the familiar blue box came into view around the curve of the polar base. He quickened his pace, but just as he neared, the door opened, revealing sleeper versions of Clara and himself, approaching with that same menacing single-mindedness.

“It’s us!” she gasped, grabbing his arm to pull him away.

“Of course it’s us!” he said, silently cursing himself for not anticipating this. “We’re dreaming too!”

“Oh my god!” Shona called, and they turned to see the door to the infirmary open and dozens of sleepers beginning to pour out, headed straight for them.

“How is that possible?” Bellows demanded. “How can there be so many?”

“The logic of a nightmare!” the Doctor said. “The dream crabs know we’re fighting back, and they’re determined to win.”

“So what do we do?” Ashley yelled. “How do we wake ourselves up?”

“There’s no time!” he said. “They’ll be on us before we can manage it. We have to leave this place!”

“How??” Shona said, her voice panicked as she backed away from the crowd of sleepers.

Dream logic — cheat the physics. “Use your imaginations! Dream yourself home!”

“But _how_?” Bellows cried.

“Come on, it’s Christmas! It’s the north pole!” the Doctor said. “Who you gonna call?”

The sound of jingle bells filled the air above them, and he looked up to find Santa’s sleigh coming in for a landing, pulled by a team of flying reindeer.

“Whoa, whoa!” Santa called to the reindeer as the sleigh landed nearby. “Quick now, you lot, pile in!” he said, waving them over.

Clara caught the Doctor’s eye, and even without the benefit of telepathy, he knew she was thinking the same as he was: how wrong it felt to leave the TARDIS behind, no matter the circumstances. It was only a dream construct of the TARDIS, but it was still their home, and it wrenched at something in him to turn his back on the familiar blue box as he made his way quickly towards Santa.

“There’s nothing for it,” he told her quietly, and she nodded as he helped her onto the sleigh. The scientists clamoured into the back, and as soon as he was certain they were all safely aboard, the Doctor climbed into the empty seat beside Santa, just in front of Clara.

“Fortunately, I know all your home addresses,” Santa said. “Even yours, Doctor!” He snapped the reins and the sleigh lifted smoothly into the air, leaving the polar base and the gathering horde of Kantrofarri far below.

They climbed quickly above the cloud cover, with the sort of ease only possible in dreams. Snow continued to swirl around them, but the stars and the moon were bright overhead — the sort of view that might even be called _scenic_ and _romantic_ if not for their current circumstances.

Clara leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, and he curled one hand around both of hers, needing to reassure himself that she was still with him. There had been far too many close calls tonight, and they weren’t out of danger yet.

“What happens now?” Clara asked, voice raised over the sound of the wind rushing past. “This is us waking up, right?”

“Could be,” the Doctor replied. “Well, I hope so. Waking up, or—”

“Or?”

Or the one outcome he was unwilling to accept. “Just focus on this,” he said instead. “Do you believe in Santa Claus?”

“I think you know my feelings on impossible heroes, Doctor,” Clara said, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “The others, though— Santa,” she said, turning to him, “we have to get everyone home!”

“Right you are, Miss Oswald!” he said, tugging at the reins to direct the flying reindeer into a new course. “Or isn’t it _missus_ now?” he added with a grin. “I do believe I updated your entry on my list this year.”

“Shush,” she snarked back. “You can check your list twice just as soon as everyone is out of danger.”

“Not to worry, here comes London now,” Santa said as they descended out of the snow-filled clouds, the lights of the city sparkling below them.

“Bellows, you first!” Clara called, turning towards the others without releasing her hold on the Doctor. “Where do you live?”

“Have a little faith, Clara, please!” Santa said. “I am a professional!”

“There!” Bellows said. “I can see my house! That’s it, just there!”

The Doctor turned to look where she was pointing, but Bellows had already disappeared. The dream seemed to constrict around them, the shared mental space shrinking.

“Where’d she go?” Shona demanded in a worried tone.

“Home!” Clara told her. “It’s alright, Shona, she’s gone home!”

“You mean she’s woken up? Safe at home?”

“It might not have been visions of sugar plums, Shona sweetheart,” Santa called to her over his shoulder. “But that’s at least partially on you, now isn’t it? Watching sci-fi horror films on Christmas Eve!”

“Huh,” Shona said thoughtfully. “I was, wasn’t I?” With a sudden silence and the feeling of the dreamscape contracting, she was gone.

“Two down,” Santa said. “You’re up next, Ashley!”

“You know, I don’t think I’m actually a scientist at all,” she said. “But I did appreciate the microscope, Santa!”

“Many happy returns!” he replied jovially, and then the Doctor and Clara were alone in the sleigh with him. “Alright, you two,” Santa went on, “best get to waking up. I _can_ take the sleigh to where the TARDIS is in the Vortex, but I don’t think any of us want to see the physics involved with that.”

“Actually, I’d be quite curious—” the Doctor started, but cut off abruptly as he felt Clara’s hands vanish from beneath his. “Clara!” he cried, spinning around in his seat to find the bench behind him empty.

“Go on, Doctor, wakey wakey!” Santa said, laughing. “It won’t do to keep the missus waiting. As a man who has been married a great deal longer than you have, trust me on that one!”

The sharp pain in his temple was dwarfed by the pain in his hearts at the thought of being separated from Clara, and the Doctor let the two together pull him up and out of the dream.

He woke coughing, with Clara’s hands on his shoulders and her worried face only inches from his.

“There you are,” she sighed in relief, leaning away to give him room to catch his breath. “You just _had_ to get the last word with Santa, didn’t you?”

“Something like that,” he said, sitting up and pulling Clara into a hug, his hearts still hammering against his ribs. “I hope you’ve had your fill of the north pole.”

She laughed lightly, but her fierce hold on him made him think that she was just as shaken by their encounter with the Kantrofarri as he was. “Isn’t this the part where you point out that you were right, that there isn’t actually a research base at the north pole, and Santa Claus is only a figment of our imaginations?”

“That figment just saved our lives, so perhaps I’ll hold off on the gloating for another time.” He pulled back and looked at her seriously. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” Clara said. “My head still aches a bit, but then we have been through rather a lot tonight. Nothing some hot cocoa won’t fix, I expect,” she added, quirking a smile at him.

The Doctor nodded absently, glancing around. They were back in their cosy, cluttered bedroom on the TARDIS, the dusty piles of two dead dream crabs marring the deep blue of their bedsheets.

“How did they even get into the TARDIS, anyway?” Clara asked, following his gaze. “Did we leave the shields down again?”

“Must have done,” he said as he slid out from beneath the blankets and climbed from the bed. “We ought to go to the console room before we stop off for cocoa, double check our defenses to be certain.” 

Clara reached for his hand, and he grasped hers, pulling her to her feet beside him. They each stilled instantly, staring down at their joined hands — suddenly acutely aware of the unnatural silence between their minds. Their very own dream test, one far more accurate than the Helman-Ziegler test had any hope of being.

“Clara,” the Doctor breathed, anxiety working its way into his tone as the headache he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge forced itself to be known.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, no, we woke up!”

“Nested dream states,” he reminded her.

“But the others— the others all went home, they all woke up safely!”

“Or they were never real to begin with,” he pointed out. “You wanted to go to the north pole to see Santa, and I told you we would only find a load of boring scientists. Is it so surprising that that’s _exactly_ what we got? Think about it, Clara,” he went on, “how did we get here? What were we doing before we fell asleep here?”

“Well, we were...” she trailed off, her expression panicked.

“You’re trying desperately to resist saying ‘it’s a long story’, aren’t you?”

“How is this even possible?” she demanded rather than confirm his suspicions. “We keep waking up, only to find that we haven’t woken at all!”

“Dreams within dreams, Clara. There’s no telling how deep they go!”

“No one knows they’re not dreaming,” she said, staring at him in horrified realisation. “Isn’t that what you told Bellows? _Not for one single moment of our lives_.”

“ _We_ know,” he insisted, raising their joined hands as proof. “So long as our telepathy isn’t working, we know we’re still dreaming!”

Clara shook her head, tears rising to make her dark eyes look oversized on her pale face. “ _That’s_ your litmus test for real?” she asked, repeating his earlier words back to him. 

“I know that’s real,” he insisted. “I know it!”

“Think it through, Doctor. Think about how much you wished for it, for the chance to share your mind with someone again.”

“My wish wasn’t just to share my mind with _someone_ , Clara,” he told her. “I wished for _you_.”

She huffed out a watery, despairing laugh. “That is exactly my point! What if it isn’t real? What if the entire thing has been part of the dream?” she demanded. “What if we’ve been asleep this whole time, and everything that’s happened the last few months has been nothing but the hallucinations of our dying minds?”

“Clara,” he started, but she shook her head again. 

“How long ago did the dream crabs find us? What if we wake up, and I— What if I never left Danny? What if all of this, our marriage and our life together, has just been a dream? Or— or _worse_ , what if we’re still on Trenzalore?” she said, her tears making her voice shake. “What if the Kantrofarri are part of the battle of Trenzalore? What if you never regenerated at all, and I just _dreamed_ you did, dreamed up the perfect version of you—”

He pulled her to him, wrapping her in his arms and holding her tight. “Clara, my Clara,” he murmured into her hair.

“I don’t _want_ that reality, Doctor,” she said, clutching at him desperately. “ _I don’t want it._ I would rather stay here with you, for however much time we have left, than face a life without you.”

“If we stay, we die, Clara,” he said, keeping his voice gentle. “Rule one is no dying. If we wake up on Trenzalore, there’s the chance, however remote, that we’ll only have minutes left together. But if we stay here, we will die, no question. Please, Clara. We have to _try_.”

“And if I wake up back at the Maitlands’ house, unable to connect to the internet? What if the entire time I’ve known you—” She cut herself off with a suppressed sob, clinging tighter to him.

“These fears are the dream crabs at work, Clara. This is what they do. They’re trying to convince you not to fight, that the life you are giving up isn’t worth the struggle.”

“If it’s a life without _you_ —” 

He kissed her temple, right at the point of the ice cream pain. “If we wake up to any reality but the one we know,” he said slowly, “then we still have our lives ahead of us. We still get to choose. I will find you, even if it takes half the lifetime of the universe. I will find you and marry you all over again, if that’s what it takes.”

“I think this must be easier for you, Doctor,” Clara said in a small voice, muffled against his chest. “At least you know that you’re real. For me— the whole thing sounds like a dream, from the very beginning. A madman in a magic box appeared out of nowhere and whisked me away, showed me the stars and fell in love with me. Maybe none of it was ever true.”

He pulled back just far enough to cup her face in his hands, grasping for the words to explain how much she meant to him. “You are just as miraculous to me as I am to you, my impossible girl,” he told her, holding her gaze. “There is no version of reality, of _any_ reality, in _any_ universe, where I don’t love you. You have to believe that. Our future together is out there, Clara, waiting for us to wake up. We only have to be brave enough to claim it.”

“Brave enough to face the risk that we might lose each other in the process?” she said, staring up at him with tears in her eyes.

“That risk was always part of the deal, Clara. That’s what it means to love someone. For as long as we get, that’s what we agreed on. Out there, in reality, we could have years together. But trapped in this dream, only minutes. That pain,” he said, pressing the pad of one finger to her temple, “that pain is _killing_ you. Please don’t make me watch that. We have to wake up.”

She curled her hands around his wrists, holding onto him fiercely. “I’m scared, Doctor.”

“Good,” he said softly. “Because scared is a superpower. But so is love.”

He leaned in and kissed her, pouring everything he felt for her into that kiss, projecting his love for her through his skin and into hers, hoping that wherever they were in the real world, she would feel it and know. The pain in his temple flared to a blinding white, and then he was rushing upwards, away from Clara and into whatever reality awaited them.

He woke in a strange bed, momentarily disoriented by his surroundings. Not their bed on the TARDIS, or any other he could remember sleeping in before, and he felt alarm surge through him. Perhaps Clara had been _right_ , maybe they had been asleep for far longer than he thought—

Before the panic could overtake him, he realised he was curled around a soft form, the gentle rhythm of her breathing calming his racing hearts, the smell of her hair giving him one true thing to ground himself in.

Clara.

The world seemed to right itself, the shadowy shapes in the room around him resolving into the familiar colours and textures of the bedroom in Clara’s flat, dimly lit by the faint glow of the TARDIS from where it was wedged into a corner by the door. They had fallen asleep in the midst of transferring Clara’s belongings into the TARDIS, in preparation for the end of her lease in a week’s time— 

_Clara!_

She hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken, and the Doctor quickly rolled away from her, flicking on the bedside lamp before turning back to her, his hearts in his throat. Without his body curled around hers, she flopped limply onto her back, revealing the dream crab still wrapped around her face, its grey carapace slick and sickening in the lamplight. 

He had woken, but she had not. The remains of his own dream crab were nothing more than a pile of dust and broken carapace on the pillow. He had no way of going in after her this time, no way of joining her in the murderous nightmare that still held her in its grip, and no hope of removing the dream crab without killing her.

He fumbled for her hand, curling his fingers around hers, and felt the connection linking their minds spring to life. On the other side of that mental door between them, Clara’s mind was hazy and muddled, but he could sense her terror and her despair.

“Clara,” he called to her, projecting his thoughts at her with as much force as he dared. “You have to wake up, Clara. The world you’re in, it isn’t real! You are dying, Clara!”

Her hand twitched under his grip, and he felt her mind respond, distant and saturated in fear, but real and alive and so very precious to him.

“I’m here, Clara,” he told her. “I’m waiting for you. Just follow the sound of my voice. Please, you have to wake up!”

He could feel her searching for him, reaching out to him through their mental bond, desperate and alone and very, very scared. 

“That pain in your head,” he said, telepathically echoing his words as he spoke. “That is the monster that is _killing_ you! But it’s also your way out, Clara. Focus on that pain, make it worse, make it real.” He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand, cradling it in both of his own. “I can’t save you, Clara,” he said, as he squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his forehead against her hand. “You are the only one who can do that. Please,” he whispered, wishing for this harder than he had ever wished for anything in his very long life, terrified of losing her. “You have to fight. You have to wake up. Please, Clara. _Please_.”

Her fingers curled around his with surprising strength, and then she was coughing raggedly, and the Doctor’s eyes flew open to find Clara sitting up, the dream crab crumbling to dust beside her. She turned to him instantly, clutching at his hands and throwing her free arm around his neck to hug him close.

“I couldn’t find you,” she cried, her thoughts a disjointed jumble of dark images, endless hallways and chalkboards covered in his scrawled handwriting. “I was alone in the TARDIS and you were gone, and I couldn’t—”

“Shhh, it’s alright now,” the Doctor said, folding her into his embrace and pulling her half into his lap. “It was a nightmare, and it’s over now, Clara.” 

She leaned back to blink up at him, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Is it?” she demanded. “We’ve woken up so many times, how can we be sure this is real?”

“Because of _this_ ,” he said, cradling her face with one hand and watching her eyes light up with understanding as their minds connected. “You’re back. You’re in my head, Clara. Our very own dream test, the only one I trust.”

She reached out to him tentatively through their telepathic link, as though worried that it would disappear at the slightest provocation. When it held steady, he felt her rush in, filling all the spaces he kept open for her, spilling over with relief and joy and her love for him.

“We’re back,” she said, pressing her forehead to his. “ _This_ is real. I’m sorry I doubted it, I was just so afraid of losing you.”

The Doctor bit his tongue against acknowledging the obvious, that between them that eventual loss was inevitable. But with their minds telepathically intertwined, Clara heard him anyway.

“Someday,” she said somberly. “But not today. Today I get to keep you.”

“Every good day, every bad day,” he murmured, repeating their vows. “All of my tomorrows.”

Clara slid her nose against his, leaning in just slightly to kiss him. “I cannot _believe_ how much I missed this,” she said when they parted, clasping his hand and sending a wave of emotion to him through their mental link. “You and all your alien weirdness inside my head has somehow become the single most real thing in the entire universe.”

“My ‘alien weirdness’ does occasionally have its advantages,” he said, grinning at her.

She smiled up at him, then her expression shifted. “Oh, you’re bleeding,” she said, motioning to his temple, her voice concerned.

“We’re back in reality,” he reminded her, “the dream crabs actually leave a wound, here. But not to worry,” he said, reaching up and brushing his fingers over his temple, “it’s healing already, see?” He held up his hand, showing her the swirling golden energy clinging to it.

He felt her alarm through their telepathic bond. “Are you going to—?” she started, horrified, as memories filled her mind of the last time he’d changed his face, that final day on Trenzalore.

“No, no,” he assured her quickly. “Just repairing the damage. In fact, I should be able to...” He pulled a little more of the excess regeneration energy from the healing wound and then touched his fingers to the matching damage on Clara’s temple. Her skin smoothed over as he watched, and he could feel it healing the tissues beneath as well. “There, good as new,” he said gently. 

She closed her eyes for a moment, sighing in relief. “It’s really over, then,” she said. “The dream crabs are dead.”

“The ones that attacked us, at least,” he agreed. “We should still probably contact UNIT, though, ask them to investigate to be certain. But maybe not just now, given that it’s the middle of the night on Christmas Eve.”

Clara blinked around at the room as though only just noticing their surroundings, and then groaned. “Right. We spent Christmas Eve packing up my flat and preparing for the disaster tomorrow is likely to be. Christmas Eve Plans A and B are more rightly known as everything I’d rather do than face this confrontation with my family,” she added, making a face.

“You think it’ll be a confrontation?” he asked, equal parts concerned and confused.

“Well, the good news is that Linda isn’t coming this year, so we might actually be able to get through it without any shouting.”

“I thought your gran at least was fond of me?” 

“She’s fond of the Swedish nudist she met last Christmas,” Clara said, shooting him an amused look. “As unbelievable as it is to say, our current situation is going to take a bit more to explain than _that_ fiasco did. I have no idea how any of this is going to go over with her or with Dad. Why do you think I’ve been putting it off for so long?”

The Doctor hesitated, then said, “Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t _have_ to give up your life here, Clara. We could find another way.”

She looked up at him and held his gaze, her face serious. “I am very sure I want to do this, Doctor. If there was any lingering question in my mind, it’s settled now, after what we just went through. I know the life I want, the life I was willing to die to keep, and it’s not here. It’s with you, in the TARDIS, out there roaming the universe.”

“As long as it’s what _you_ want, you’ll hear no argument from me,” he reminded her.

“So this is it,” she said, her voice resolute, “the last Christmas of my life on Earth.” She sighed and looked around at the room again, cluttered with stacks of books and clothing and half-filled boxes. “Though I suppose I don’t have to explain to _you_ of all people the temptation to run away and avoid my responsibilities for a little while longer,” she added ruefully.

“We do live in a time machine,” the Doctor pointed out.

“Right now, I live in a pile of boxes halfway moved into a time machine,” she countered.

“My point, Clara,” he said, smiling at her fondly, “is that it can be Christmas Eve for as long as we want. It is our first Christmas together since getting married, after all.”

“So?” she said, looking up at him and raising her eyebrows.

“So, all of time and space is sitting right there, in that blue box,” he said with a nod to the TARDIS. “Please,” he went on, holding his hand out to her, “don’t even argue.”

Clara stared at him for a long moment before laying her hand in his, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “All of time and space with the man I love?” she said, that smile blossoming into a grin. “How did you guess? That is the _only_ thing I want for Christmas.” 

She leaned in and kissed him, her joy seeping through her skin into his. Then by mutual unspoken agreement, they leapt from the bed and rushed towards the TARDIS, holding hands and giggling like two children up far past their bedtime.

“Merry Christmas, Clara,” he said as they paused on the threshold.

She gazed up at him, her expression full of love and the promise of adventure. “Merry Christmas, Doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Leave me a comment or a keyboard smash or an emoji to let me know what you thought. Happy holidays, everyone! ❤️


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